Hey every­one! I know it’s been a hot min­ute since I’ve post­ed on the blog. I don’t like to share this kind of stuff, though I fig­ured I should let you in on the fact that I have been han­dling some unex­pect­ed health stuff for a while and my focus has been on get­ting 100% bet­ter – I’m almost there! Now that it’s Fall, I thought this would be a per­fect time to share my tricks for keep­ing skin smooth, hydrat­ed, and blem­ish-free as it gets cold and dry. Use a Low pH Cleanser I bab­ble a lot about pH, but that’s only because it’s pret­ty much the key to keep­ing your skin from turn­ing into a dry, patchy mess of dust. Our skin is nat­u­ral­ly acidic, about 4.5 to 5.5 on the pH scale. This healthy acid­i­ty is how we keep bac­te­ria out and hydra­tion in, which pre­vents issues like acne or annoy­ing dry patch­es. Often a quick pH fix is all it takes to make a dra­mat­ic dif­fer­ence in the health of your skin. Avoid cleansers with a pH high­er than 6.5 – even then I per­son­al­ly prefer to use cleansers that have a pH of 4 to 5.5 at most. Some cleansers test this for you, oth­er times you may have to hunt down the pH online, or test it your­self to make sure what you’re using is good for your skin (more on that lat­er). My low pH cleanser favorites: illi Total Aging Care Cleans­ing Water NIOD San­skrit Saponins Cos­rx Low pH Good Morn­ing Gel Cleanser Su:m 37 Mir­a­cle Rose Cleans­ing Stick For my hands (which are prone to get­ting super dry) and as a body wash, I actu­al­ly...

I’ve been want­i­ng to share this guide for a few months now, since I always get a lot of ques­tions about black­heads, along with com­men­tary about how annoy­ing they are and how ugly they can be and why they just won’t go away forever­rrr. So here we go…solution time. Do You Have Blackheads or Sebaceous Filaments? Do you feel like you are con­stant­ly pop­ping out tiny black­heads and watch­ing them return over and over to your nose or chin or oth­er areas? Then you may not have black­heads. I have to say that many peo­ple I talk to don’t real­ly have a black­head prob­lem – they have what’s called seba­ceous fil­a­ments. Here’s a quick way to know the dif­fer­ence: Black­heads are open come­dones (a.k.a. pim­ples or acne). They are slight­ly raised and appear black. An extract­ed black­head looks like a solid, usu­al­ly yel­low, wax-like plug with a black tip. It can also become infect­ed. Seba­ceous fil­a­ments are a bit like black­head impos­tors. They are pin-like and come in a choice of col­ors: gray (not the dark black of a black­head), tan, or skin/flesh-colored. The skin is not raised up around them. They can appear any­where, but the nose, chin, and fore­head are the most com­mon. An extract­ed SF looks like a plain white or yel­low­ish spike or string. They don’t get infect­ed or inflamed and are nat­u­ral to every sin­gle human. I put them side by side so you can see the dif­fer­ence (see below). See how the SFs are super tiny and dark, but not black, and how they have no raised or puffy skin around them? Now notice how the black­heads are tru­ly black,...

[Closed — See Below for the Winner + Exclusive Coupon!] Hey every­one! Sooooo while I am busy writ­ing 3 dif­fer­ent arti­cles at once for your future read­ing plea­sure, I thought I would get togeth­er with my awe­some team at Epic Beau­ty Bar to curate some of the year’s most-loved nat­u­ral beau­ty prod­ucts for a very rare occasion…an epic $400 give­away! Just because. And because I real­ly appre­ci­ate all of you for always being sup­port­ive and ask­ing awe­some ques­tions so I can answer them in the hopes that it helps you get and keep beau­ti­ful skin. By the way, if you haven’t seen my new YouTube videos, you can watch them here. Lots more to come! Okay so more details on this rare give­away: There are TONS of options for get­ting points in the give­away by fol­low­ing the brands includ­ed in the give­away, tweet­ing, etc. Don’t wor­ry about feel­ing like you need to do all of the actions either, I think only 2 or 3 are required. The more points you get, the more like­ly you are to win (like hoard­ing a truck­load of raf­fle tick­ets instead of just one). One Winner Will Get This Complete Bundle Worth $424 USD Rahua Jet Set­ter Kit CV Skin­labs Res­cue-on-the-Go Kit Stu­dio 78 Paris We Breathe Eye­shad­ow (win­ner gets their col­or of choice) May Lind­strom Skin The Clean Dirt Vapour Soft Focus Foun­da­tion (win­ner gets their shade of choice) Lina Han­son Glob­al Body Serum La Bel­la Fig­u­ra Aria Night­time Treat­ment RGB Nail Col­or (win­ner gets their col­or of choice) RGB Top Coat Enjoy and may the odds ever be in your favor (#sor­rynot­sor­ry couldn’t resist). P.S. The win­ner will be announced on 29 April 2015! Keep a look out for the win­ner announce­ment and a spe­cial gift...

I was first intro­duced to MUN in 2013, and I wrote my review of the now-renowned skin sav­ior known as MUN No.1 Aknari Bright­en­ing Youth Serum (for­mer­ly labelled Night­time Dream Youth Serum) back in May 2013. My love of MUN has held steady the­se last two years, as its proven itself over and over again as the ulti­mate super­pow­er in face oils. Even peo­ple who have had the worst expe­ri­ences with face oils will buy MUN Aknari in trep­i­da­tion, then email me two weeks lat­er enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly exclaim­ing how their skin is now clear/plump/brighter/smooth/you name it. It’s just one of those prod­ucts that if it ever ceased to exist, there would be a lot – and I mean kilo­liters – of tears. When Mune­mi Imai, the beau­ty and brain behind MUN, told me of her plan last sum­mer to launch a ton­er, I imme­di­ate­ly knew it would be a stun­ner like its big sis­ter. And let’s put it this way: I was sent a bot­tle for review and have since bought two more. Keep read­ing for all the details! MUN No. 11 Anarose Rejuvenating Rose Toner Review Years ago, I was not a fan of ton­ers. I didn’t see the point. They dried out the skin, they were a tremen­dous waste of cot­ton balls, and they seemed like just anoth­er way to extract a few dol­lars from our pock­ets. I have since changed my mind. A real ton­er is meant to bal­ance the pH of the skin, and work in tandem with your nat­u­ral skin bar­ri­er to keep your skin smooth, hydrat­ed, and free of infec­tion and acne. A prop­er­ly for­mu­lat­ed ton­er is worth its weight in gold. The basic idea is...